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Call to all meet in Meuse starting now to defend the forest

In our strange Meuse country, it sometimes feels like time has become cyclical. For once global warming isn’t to blame, but rather seasonal authoritarian fever spikes around the Lejuc Forest, reoccupied since September 2016. On April 26th, after many judiciary procedures which gained us some time since December, the Bar-le-Duc court finally declared that the forest inhabitants were susceptible to eviction without delay. Now, on May 18th, Mandres-en-Barrois municipal council will meet to make a new decision to legalize the exchange of the Lejuc Forest. The Empire (and ANDRA) strike back.

We’ve had two months of respite, during which new people have settled, tree houses have been built, houses bought, 1500m² of potatoes and onions planted on squatted land, naturalist walks and witches week ends organized, etc, etc.

Now, it’s all starting again. After the “emergency summer” and the first eviction, “the indian summer” and the reoccupation, the “determined winter” with threats against the forest and marches against the lab, we now enter our “resisting spring”! The helicopters have started once more to tour daily, or even nightly. The cops, nasty vultures, are going around villages, making some villagers furious. Leaves and flowers are blooming everywhere, including on some barricades: Meuse is beautiful and is welcoming you, starting now.

So the forest can be evicted, but it hasn’t been yet. A few reminders about the “paper” barricades – which always fall in the end but help us gain time to strengthen our (op)position: the decision which had enabled ANDRA to own the forest was invalidated by a court order on February 28th. So this forest legally never stopped being the property of Mandres-en-Barrois inhabitants. It’s not over yet about the decision to be made on May 18th. From March to July many bird species are nesting in the forest, which blocks the authorization to cut trees. Moreover a good dozen of protected species – a forest cat, bats, birds…- have been identified in the forest in the last few months. And about the real, actual barricades, the houses and look out posts… it is only up to us to solidify them, starting now!

Very little was said about “environment” or nuclear power during this French presidential non-campaign which resembled a poorly written, plot twisted reality tv show; 2007 is far away, with its Hulot “ecological pact” and the Grenelle of Environment show. The 2012 promise to shut Fessenheim down remained, until the very end, but a promise. In 2017 people talked about “scandals”, immigration-terrorism-racism and safety-police. The nuclear waste will be buried like the slums or the proletarians in popular neighborhoods and struggles: with a police-militia becoming more fascistic every day and more “autonomous” in its action. Bure is the prolongation in a hyper rural area of the repressive experiments of an ever increasingly authoritarian power.

And the election of a clean shaved white teethed “anti systemic” and “pro change” banker (rather than a fascistic carnivorous woman) isn’t going to change anything -except perhaps the rhythm – to the deadly march of capitalistic, racist and authoritarian hell. Whether one is fighting against a nuclear waste dump, an airport, police, borders, a social plan, systemic oppression, it is always the same hell one is trying to break through and to pause even if just for a moment. Struggling against everything that dominates us, comes down to building an infinity of other spaces by ourselves, other independent life and struggle communities, other songs, other dreams, other relations where one doesn’t have to sell oneself, without the approval of any given authority.

In the twisted language of those who pretend to rule over us, such tentative spaces, such growing struggles, are nothing but “tumors”. Lets take them at their word: this world is cancerous, lets give it a tumor indeed to joyfully pierce so that its pus can bleed all over the wretched face of a rotting order. Lets be nice, and welcome this new baby faced despot of wild capitalism and all his clique of eager would be entrepreneurs with a gift of our own: a fancy coronation with a struggle we fully commit to and publicly and politically assume in the heart of our 220 hectares forest.

Starting now – and as usual- every presence in Bure is crucial. Let us refrain from feeling triumphant or from any war mongering fantasies: we know that what we build is fragile, yet we are ready to bet all our love in it. We also know that even though we are far more now living here than a year ago, we are still not strong enough to push back on every front we wish to. There will be in the months to come in Bure a need indeed for shields, trenches, barricades but also and perhaps mainly a need for songs, massages, cultivating squatted fields, living together, wondering about ourselves and our relationships… there will be mostly though a need for joy, caring and caring for each other if we are to continue building a desirable life here to make their planned desert a lie.

We are waiting for you!

ANDRA DÉGAGE, RÉSISTANCE ET SABOTAGE !

KEEP YOUR WASTE, WE’RE KEEPING THE FOREST!

NEXT MEETINGS

Starting now lets converge towards Bure to reinforce the forest occupation: there is space, there is people to welcome you, bring equipment to be self reliant as much as possible: tents, sleeping bags, boots, food, lamps, climbing gear, construction gear and tools…

On May 18th PROTEST at 6pm in front of Mandres-en-Barrois city hall to put pressure on the council and prevent them for legalizing ANDRA’s property of the forest: bring food and drinks, metal pans, music instruments, banners, etc! More info to come on en.vmc.camp

May 20th : big 300 000 steps demo against the nuclearization of the territory in Bure. More info on http://www.cedra52.fr/

June 19thto 26th : ACTION AND NESTING week: come “nest” in the forest with the cool forest owls to reinforce the occupation, and organize actions against ANDRA (and its (shit) world)! More info soon on en.vmc.camp

IN CASE OF EVICTION

On the same day

Meeting at 6pm at the Resistance House in Bure to support the evicted and decide what to do next

Meeting at 6pm in front of prefectures for those who are too far to come to Bure

One last pic nic before the nuclear desert ?

Let’s prevent a new vote authorizing the exchange of Lejuc woods ! Gathering from 6 pm in front of the town hall of Mandres-en-Barrois!

On the 18th of May, the Mandres-en-Barrois city council will hold a meeting at 8 pm. Only one topic on the agenda : regularizing Lejuc’s wood property by voting through a new consultation. On the 28th of February, the administrative court of Nancy invalidated the previous negotiation held on july 2nd 2015 at 6AM for being full of irregularities, and summoned Mandres municipality to sort out the situation for 4 months. After 2 and a half months, here we are, Andra counterattacks : let’s gather massively to dissuade any vote in favour of the Lejuc’s wood exchange. Let’s bring drinks, food, music instruments , signs and banners , and overall, let’s be as many as we can ! This is a determinant turning point for the fight against the CIGEO project : we will not let Andra wear the mask of legality so easily !

This municipal council is one more democratic masquerade in a project that has made social acceptability art. Democratic masquerade for putting on the shoulders of 10 under pressure elected representatives of a 130 inhabitants village, the exchange of wood that allow the beginning of the biggest European industrial project construction work. Democratic masquerade by limiting the decision to the municipal council while in 2013, when it had to vote for the first project of wood exchanging, the same council decided that it could not take alone a decision which “would commit the future of the commune for thousands years”; while in 2013, during a consultation, the inhabitants of the village voted NO to the project, with a majority of 2 out of 3. Democratic masquerade while at least 5 out of the 11 elected representatives are implied in conflicts of interest : by obtaining hunting leases by Andra, by having some relatives working at ANDRA, by getting dozens of hectares of agricultural land in precarious leases by Andra, SAFER, etc. How could these “chosen ones” repel the hand that feeds them? How could we seriously believe that this council will be “neutral”, free from Andra influence? In the village and around, nobody is fooled.

All of this is hypocrisy, and the deliberation that is gonna to be made is by advance illegitimate. Actually, the fate of this wood -common property- concerns all those who, in Mandres, in Meuse but also everywhere else, love it, use it, live there, do not want to see it transformed into a nuclear desert. Let’s support massively the few courageous counselors who will vote NO to this exchange, and those who will abstain through our presence. The deliberation MUST refuse the exchange, or NOT STAND. And in any case, the forest will remain free of Andra until the project is abandoned !
Let’s be as many as possible! Tell your friends, your sister, your brother, your colleagues, all those who have not returned to Bure for a long time ! It is a tricky time in the fight against CIGEO ! We have boycotted the public debate in 2013, we have blocked construction work in the woods for almost a year, we brought down Andra’s gates last February ; on Thursday, May 18, we can, with the resistant inhabitants of Mandres, release the commune from ANDRA’s evil influence and stop the CIGEO project once again !

Let’s prevent a new vote allowing the exchange of Lejuc’s wood ! Gathering starts from 6 pm in front of the Mandres en Barrois city hall !

Practical information

Gathering from 6pm at the town hall square (place de la mairie). We expect to be a bunch at 8pm when the meeting begins! There might be cops so remember to check if your cars are in order in case you’re controlled.

Bring something to make a real feast, music instruments, streamers, disguises, pans, anything that can create a swinging concert to echo in a thousand of miles the voice of our resistance, while they want to decide secretly, in a small town hall room, the future of our territory for 100000 years.

Bring the information up ! en.vmc.camp / sauvonslaforet(at)riseup

Media contact +33 (0)7 53 54 07 / There’ll be a time for media at 7pm near the town hall with the different groups fighting against the CIGEO project

As early as 6am for example, if one wants to take part in an illegal municipal vote. It was at that time that, on July 2nd 2015, elected members of the Mandres council entered the city hall guarded by ANDRA’s private security. Under their watchful eyes was voted with a secret ballot the sacrifice of the Mandres-en-Barrois communal forest.

It was thus at 6am in the opaque fog that somehow reminded one of ANDRA’s methods, that we had yesterday morning the pleasure to discover, in front of Mandres city hall, bits of wall and a sign reading “N’allons pas dans le mur” (“Let’s not go straight into a wall”).

If these bits of wall symbolically block the entrance to the building where on Thursday the 18th is to be held this voting masquerade once more, they mostly remind one of the amazing alchemist gifts demonstrated by ANDRA within the last two years. Indeed who doesn’t know yet that wherever ANDRA goes, it transforms trees into reinforced concrete and villages into nuclear deserts?

Movie projection/debate around the movie about the struggle against the transformer and its 1000 wind turbines.

During the days of the energy transition for the so-called green growth, the RTE (the electricity transmission system operator in France) tries to appropriate the lands of two young farmers in Saint-Victor in South Aveyron, in order to build a 7-ha (1ha = 10 000m²) transformer. The thousand wind turbines being constructed on the nearby ridges will provide the power that will be redistributed on the energy trade international network.

In spite of the opposition of Saint-Victor’s municipality and of most of its population, the invading engines of the RTE and the promoters are coming, with the support of the government services.

On the first day of winter 2014, a hut is built up on the coveted lands. The encounters, the bonds and the resistances spread and intensify.

Post navigation

30 janvier : advisement of a trial, court of Bar-le-Duc
4 february : works on the Solidarity Cabin in the Bois Lejuc
13 february : Trial of two people for the fall of the wall, 9AM, court of Bar-le-Duc
3 & 4 march : Meeting of all the support committees !
9, 10 & 11 march : week-end of discussions on Kurdistan and communalism
15 & 16 march : two days against all prisons !

Other :
February : Collective works in Dijon to build a cabin for the Bois Lejuc. Call for donations !
10 february : Celebration day on the zad of Notre-Dame-des-Landes !!